About

Steven Davidoff Solomon is a faculty member at UC Berkeley Law with a focus on law and economics, business law, and public interest. His work involves engaging with various clinical programs and initiatives that address social justice, human rights, environmental law, and community advocacy. He has contributed to numerous projects and clinics that aim to promote legal reform, protect civil rights, and support underserved communities. His background includes active participation in clinical education, policy advocacy, and interdisciplinary research, emphasizing the intersection of law, economics, and social justice. Solomon's efforts are directed toward fostering legal solutions that address systemic inequalities and enhance community well-being through practical legal services, policy analysis, and scholarly work.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Economics
• Business
• Human–computer interaction
• Social psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Law and economics
• Psychology

Selected publications

• Universal Demand Laws Did Not Increase Management Entrenchment

  Critical Finance Review · 2025-01-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Dual Class Stock

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2025-11-19

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract This chapter examines dual class common stock. Dual class stock has evolved from a vehicle used largely by insiders in family-owned and media companies to retain control into a popular capital structure for founders and initial shareholders in technology start-ups. After briefly reviewing the history of dual class stock, the chapter recounts the longstanding debate over its desirability, in which defenders tout the ability of dual class to enable founders to realize their idiosyncratic visions for the firm, while critics express concern over the creation of agency costs. The chapter describes how this policy debate has led to efforts to restrict or restrain the use of dual class through stock exchange listing bans, index exclusions, proxy advisor recommendations, and sunset provisions. It concludes by observing that the debate over dual class is overly simplistic in framing the issue as a binary choice. Rather dual class stock exposes the possibilities and challenges associated with the customization of shareholder control in the corporation. In particular, dual class highlights both the challenge in identifying who is a controlling shareholder and the implications of that control for traditional fiduciary duties.

  PublisherDOI

• Contract Rights and Control 

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• National Security Implications in Cross-Border M&A

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2025-05-22

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract This chapter examines national security implications in cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions. It details the rise in prominence of national security issues and regulations across multiple jurisdictions and the way that these new rules and approaches are reshaping and restricting cross-border M&A. It begins by detailing the rise and expansion of national security regimes in the United States through a review process led by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. It then details the implementation of similar formal and informal regimes in other jurisdictions, including Australia, China, the European Union, and the United Kingdom. It concludes by theorizing that emerging and differential approaches to national security in various jurisdictions are likely to reshape the economics of M&A transactions, delimit investment among nations and become the primary force regulating cross-border M&A transactions. These current national security review landscape also highlights the interaction between law and politics, and how national security exceptionalism has created an alternative and multi-dimensional regulatory regime outside of existing regulatory oversight in M&A.

  PublisherDOI

• Control and Its Discontents

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Musk & Twitter: A Case Study in Private Equity and Contractual Certainty

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Low Back Pain or Injury Before Collegiate Athletics, a Potential Risk Factor for Noncontact Athletic Injuries

  Journal of Athletic Training · 2024-09-17

  articleOpen access

  CONTEXT: Surrounding the predictive value of clinical measurements and assessments for future athletic injury, most researchers have not differentiated between contact and noncontact injuries. OBJECTIVES: We assessed the association between clinical measures and questionnaire data collected before sport participation and the incidence of noncontact lower extremity (LE) injuries among Division III collegiate athletes. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING: University setting, National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Here, 488 Division III freshmen athletes were recruited to participate in the study during their preseason physical examinations. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Prospective incidence of noncontact LE injury. Athletes completed questionnaires to collect demographics and musculoskeletal pain history. Clinical tests, performed by trained examiners, included hip provocative tests, visual appraisal of a single-leg squat to identify dynamic knee valgus, and hip range of motion. Injury surveillance for each athlete's collegiate career was performed. The athletic training department documented each athlete-reported new onset injury and documented the injury location, type, and outcome (days lost, surgery performed). Univariable generalized estimating equation models were used to analyze the relationship between each clinical measure and the first occurrence of noncontact LE injury. An exchangeable correlation structure was used to account for repeated measurements within athletes (right and left limbs). RESULTS: Of the 488 athletes, 369 athletes (75%) were included in the final analysis. Sixty-nine noncontact LE injuries were reported. Responding yes to, "Have you ever had pain or an injury to your low back?" was associated with an increased risk of noncontact LE, odds ratio = 1.59 (95% confidence interval = 1.03, 2.45; P = .04). No other clinical measures were associated with an increased injury risk. CONCLUSIONS: A history of prior low back pain or injury was associated with an increased risk of sustaining a noncontact LE injury while participating in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III athletics.

  PublisherDOI

• Extending dual-class stock: A proposal

  Theoretical Inquiries in Law · 2024-06-01

  articleSenior author

  Abstract The increasing use of dual-class voting structures in public companies—and the frequency with which such structures contain sunset provisions—raises the issue of when and how such sunset provisions should be modified, extending the company’s use of the dual-class structure. Recent decisions have applied the entire fairness legal standard to dual-class extensions, but, in the recent Trade Desk case, the Delaware Chancery court concluded that the extension complied with the MFW standard and should therefore receive the protection of the business judgment rule. We question the practicality of applying either entire fairness or MFW to dual-class extensions. Instead, we argue for a contractual approach in which the initial charter specifies the conditions under which a dual-class structure can be extended. The contractual approach increases the information available to shareholders at the IPO stage, thereby improving market efficiency. We argue that extensions that comply with such charter provisions should be insulated from entire fairness review.

  PublisherDOI

• Does Voluntary Financial Disclosure Matter? The Case of Fairness Opinions in Mergers and Acquisitions

  The Journal of Law and Economics · 2023-08-01 · 3 citations

  articleSenior author

  We use the shifting nature of Delaware’s disclosure requirements for fairness opinions in tender offers to assess the impact of voluntary versus mandatory disclosure. To do so, we obtain the disclosures of details in fairness opinions by the targets of over 900 tender offers from 1995 to 2019. Over this period, the disclosure regime for tender offers transitioned from a voluntary one to a mandatory one. We document that the disclosure rates of details in fairness opinions are low under voluntary rules and rise steadily as Delaware courts became increasingly insistent on the disclosure of these details. We also show that proshareholder changes to tender offers are associated with disclosure of tender offer details only under the voluntary regime. These results highlight the complexity of predicting the effects of disclosure rules and provide empirical support for theoretical work that argues that mandatory-disclosure regimes can narrow opportunities to signal.

  PublisherDOI

• A Blueprint for University Governance

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Robert P. Bartlett

  88 shared

• Claire A. Hill

  University of Minnesota

  87 shared

• Leo E. Strine

  81 shared

• Albert Bevier

  University of California, Davis

  81 shared

• Stone Scholar

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  81 shared

• Harris Frank

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  81 shared

• J Sean

  University of California, Davis

  81 shared

• John J. Cogan

  81 shared

Education

• B.A., Economics

  Yale University

  1985

• M.A., Economics

  Yale University

  1987

• Other

  Harvard Law School

  1990

• Ph.D., Economics

  Harvard University

  1995